Tag Archives: Shiraz/Syrah

Spinifex Esprit 2009

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Mataro, Grenache, Shiraz, Carignan, Cinsault; why not?

Some performances consist of one idea. Sometimes this is enough to carry the weight of the show; it all depends on the strength of the idea and how well the audience connects with it. And so it is with this wine. It says one thing clearly and consistently, which may be the most wonderful thing if you like what it has to say.

The nose is dense and savoury, a strongly liquerous character instantly emerging from the glass, speaking of dark berries and darker oak, shadowy corners and even shadowier conversations. I  see dark tones each time I smell this wine; it’s moody if somewhat monochromatic and blunt. The blend seems beautifully executed in terms of coherence.

The palate is of a piece with the nose, stylistically. It strikes a dense, flavoursome note immediately on entry, the extra dimension here being textural, driven mostly by a streak of acid that sits a little uneasily alongside the fruit’s density of flavour. More dark berry liqueur and velvety plushness on the middle palate, though an element of hardness starts to creep in gradually, perhaps related to the character of the oak. Things get progressively more savoury as the line progresses, before an oak-driven finish of vanilla curls and ice cream rounds things off.

There’s a lot in here by way of flavour and interest, but at the same time I am left wishing for some light and shade, a bit of nuance, less emphatic a statement. Sometimes, less certainty can be charming.

Spinifex Wines
Price: $A40
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Retail

Second Nature Cabernet Shiraz Merlot 2010

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This, Dowie Doole’s second label red, has been a reliable visitor to my house over the last few years. It’s invariably drinkable and full of flavour, showing the best face of a quaffer with surprisingly few compromises. It’s not a rarified wine in provenance or intent, but it’s usually tasty, which is quite enough to please me, most days.

The 2010 red is an especially good release. It’s so easy, so juicy, so luxurious. The nose is warm and fully fruited, showing red and black fruits embedded in a comfortingly spiced lattice. The vibe is plush and generous, as it always is with this wine, but what lifts this vintage above most is its quiet balance. This is, despite the style, a gentle wine, almost delicate in its placement. Totally unforced, this wine doesn’t so much prompt extended sniffing as it does a taste, and quick.

My lack of patience is repaid with a mouthful of easy flavour. Entry prickles a bit with acid, ushering bright red fruit onto the middle palate, where it is joined by some extra layers of fruit flavour as well as spice and soft oak. Intensity is impressive for a wine at this price point, as is the flavour profile’s avoidance of easy sweetness. There’s sweet fruit, for sure, but overall the profile tilts towards savouriness, without sacrificing drinkability. The after palate is slightly muted, while the finish rises strongly with spice, some edgy oak and more dark fruit.

I have long admired Dowie Doole wines for their ease and lack of pretension. As lovely as the higher priced labels can be, I think this producer’s particular stylistic biases mean its everyday quaffer, this wine, stands above the crowd.

Dowie Doole
Price: $A19
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Kingston Estate Echelon Shiraz 2008

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I suspect the very idea of this wine will offend some people. It’s the antithesis of the sort of artisanal, terroir-driven wine that is idealogically safe to like. No, this is from Kingston Estate, producer of reliable and occasionally striking value-priced wines. It hails not from a single, characterful vineyard but from three regions in South Australia: Mount Benson, Clare Valley and Adelaide Plains. No undiluted terroir here. Despite all that, I must admit I was very excited to see this sample arrive in the mail, for all I saw were the positives: a relatively expensive wine made by a producer with all the technology and know-how one could wish for at its disposal and, I assumed, a large network of growers from whom to procure good quality fruit.

The reality sits somewhere in between these two extremes. There’s no doubting the seriousness of this wine; the aroma is quite closed at present, with dense, almost inscrutable aromas of dark berries, the glossiest of glossy oak, deep spice and deeper brambles. It’s nowhere near ready to drink, really, but even at this young age it shows good depth and detail. Its overall vibe is savoury and adult, no hint of the confectionery fruit one might expect to see in this producer’s lower tier wines.

This palate isn’t as forbidding as the nose suggests it could be, although it’s certainly not in the zone at this stage either. The entry shows good attack and an elegant swell of fruit into the middle palate. Here, it becomes apparent that this wine is far from the blockbuster one might expect. Indeed, it’s wonderfully elegant, with good shape and flow, medium weight at most. The flavours here span red and black fruits, spice and cedar oak, winding around each other with good delineation and balance. The after palate and finish display a slight rawness that speaks of youth more than anything else; a year or two in bottle and the line should fill out into the back palate.

Ultimately, this beautifully made wine is both satisfying and frustrating. For, as much as I want to enjoy its slick perfection, it lacks a particular dimension, one that values exaggeration and imperfection above the ideal form. How silly, perhaps, to criticise a wine for being too good; buy a bottle and enjoy what is arguably an expression of what we do best.

Kingston Estate
Price: $A27.99
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Yelland & Papps Delight Grenache Shiraz 2010

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To my mind, Yelland & Papps is a bit of a Grenache specialist, or at least I consistently like its Grenaches more than any other wines in its range. There’s something about the Yelland & Papps style that lends itself especially well to Grenache’s generosity and sweet fruit character. I’ve enjoyed this label in the past, perhaps more than the straight Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon in the Delight range.

In 2010, though, the Shiraz remains the best release. The nose here is expressive and smells of artificial vanilla essence, a slightly edgy sappiness and gobs of sweet, somewhat stewed fruit. The fruit is red and black, ranging from plums to blackberries, all arguably overripe, showing a jammy rather than fresh fruit vibe. To my palate, more freshness would have led to a better aroma profile, along with more subtlety of oak character and volume.

The palate is again very generous, fruit driving a flavour profile that backs up with abundant, rather edgy oak and some pretty spiky acidity. I like the wine’s consistent volume through its line; there’s certainly plenty of fruit to go around. Again, fruit character has a question mark over it, with an overripe edge contributing hardness and detracting from the suppleness this wine occasionally hints at but never achieves.

A pretty good quaffer, then, but not quite up to the same year’s Shiraz.

Yelland & Papps
Price: $A19.95
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Yelland & Papps Delight Shiraz 2010

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It’s easy to heap praise on premium wines, for there’s often an outstanding quality to their fruit or winemaking that attracts easy attention. And we expect a lot from expensive wines, so it’s no surprise when they display excellence of style. I often think the task of the quaffing wine is so much more difficult. These are wines that are made to a certain price point, perhaps limiting the winemaker’s options with regard to fruit and oak. It’s the difference between the architect designing a luxury villa versus affordable mass housing. Yet, does the latter demand less intent or attention? I don’t think so. The challenge is simply different, and should be appreciated differently.

I’m thinking these thoughts as I taste this sub-$20 wine from Barossa producer Yelland & Papps, whose house style is firmly oriented towards easy drinkability at all price points in its range. What I’m looking for here is regional character and a total absence of the sort of insultingly simple fruit character that, all too often, gets trotted out at these price points. Happily, this wine delivers.

It’s not a wine of refinement or delicacy, nor does it need to be. The nose, in fact, is quite blunt, with highly regional ripe plum fruit character bursting from the glass, tangles of spice swirling around its core. That’s it, more or less, with little in the way of nuance or layers, but its total honesty carries it through and gives it attractive appeal.

The palate is of moderate weight and intensity, carrying a consistent line from the aroma through to entry and middle palate. There’s a simple rusticity to the flavour profile; red fruit and brown spice sharing equal billing; that makes this an easy, generous experience, despite its modest dimensions. Is the oak a little obvious (even synthetic) in character? Perhaps, but that only slightly detracts from the straightforwardness of the experience.

This seems really well-judged, as much for its lack of pretension as anything else. Drink, enjoy.

Yelland & Papps
Price: $A19.95
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Stockman's Ridge Outlaw Shiraz 2009

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There are several things that drew me towards this wine. Firstly, it garnered some serious bling at the recent NSW Small Winemakers Wine Show. Three trophies or thereabouts. In reading a bit more about the producer, I discovered this is only the second vintage ever of Shiraz, from vines planted in 2004 and 2005. On the face of it, then, a list price of $35 seems quite ambitious: no provenance, young vines, and so forth. My skepticism was, I admit, active.

If ever a wine proved that it’s what’s in the glass that counts, it’s this. Simply put, it’s a serious, distinctive, fascinating cool climate Shiraz that instantly marks this maker as one to watch. The aroma starts a little reductive, but this stink quickly blows off to reveal a cascade of dried flowers, spice, pepper, meat and savoury black fruit. Its character is forthright and confident, leaping from the glass, not at all afraid to flaunt a cool climate profile that dares the drinker to look past plush fruit.

The palate is equally distinctive, sharing the nose’s savoury character while adding a subtly handled palate structure and gently modulating texture. Flavours are pure cool climate: spice, meat, dried cranberries, dark fruits. A good whack of vanilla oak is the most obvious input from its maker; otherwise, this has the sort of distinctive fruit character that I strongly associate with single site wines, a kind of positive exaggeration that is so beautiful. Mouthfeel moves between silky smooth and gently tannic, suggesting sophisticated luxe. A nice long finish cruises on savoury dark fruits.

Excellent cool climate Shiraz, and a great example of what Orange is capable of.

Stockman’s Ridge
Price: $A35
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Kurtz Family Boundary Row Grenache Shiraz Mataro 2006

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This is the kind of wine I’d usually consume soon after release, in expectation of the sort of plush fruit that can carry 15% ABV; it’s interesting to try this now, after a little time in bottle. That a sub-$20 wine can age few years shouldn’t be taken for granted, so I’m pleased to note this is, at the very least, still very drinkable.

Whether it’s preferable now compared to as a youngster is less sure. There are definite signs of decay here, starting with an aroma that is somewhat liquerous, overlaid with autumn leaves and leather. It’s relaxed, speaking of middle age rather than boisterous youth, perhaps having lost the naive enthusiasm that can make Barossa reds so attractive on release. My only complaint is a thinness to the aroma profile, as if it has lost a tad too much stuffing.

The palate confirms these mixed impressions, from fruit character to leanness of profile. Overall, it’s a dark, brooding wine, treading on the right side of portiness while flowing over the mouth in a surprisingly elegant, quite seamless way. Acid and tannin are both fairly relaxed, creating plenty of space for a clean expression of gently ageing fruit to flow down the line. I wish there were a bit more roundness to the palate structure, more fullness of fruit, because its tendency towards leanness exposes the alcohol, which circles back around to further compress the fruit. It’s also pleasantly warm, though, and a hint of mixed herbs adds to the impression of rustic comfort.

Kurtz Family Vineyards
Price: $NA
Closure: Cork
Source: Gift

Mount Avoca Shiraz 2009

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I recently had an interesting conversation with Jeremy of the newly reborn Wine Will Eat Itself 2 (The Main Course) about the use of whole bunches in a particular Grampians Shiraz we were tasting together. I reacted very strongly, negatively, to the way the wine was made, because I felt the stalks intruded on the character of the fruit in a distractingly unsympathetic way. Just as some flavours naturally go together, this wine showed me that some flavours don’t, or at least that they should be handled sensitively, subtly, to enhance the overall flavour profile of the wine.

This wine reminds me of that conversation, not because it has an obvious whole bunch influence, but because it shows the clear influence of another component that has become so much more common in Australian Shiraz over the past ten years: Viognier. To my palate, Viognier can be a seductively positive component in many Shirazes, adding perfume and texture and whole layers of additional complexity. Tip it over the edge, though; and there are a few ways in which winemakers seem to have managed to do this; and it can utterly ruin a wine, cheapening its flavour profile and adding an unattractive gloss to its texture. This wine really treads on the edge for me, and ultimately tips over to the dark side. To be clear, it’s completely well made and, as these things go, a damn good drink.

The nose shows earthy, savoury Shiraz characters alongside a bit of dusty chocolate and perhaps some mint. It’s meaty and a bit peppery and all sorts of good things. Rising above it is a nice floral lilt, brightening the aroma profile and adding a sweetness to it that would be entirely positive if it didn’t, each time I smell it, seem a step apart from the earthy savouriness the wine otherwise displays.

The palate is a bit more clearcut; I simply don’t like the way its mouthfeel is smoothed out and pumped up, though I admit that it’s superbly glossy at the same time. This is where personal preference plays so much into wine appreciation; for me, the incredibly seductive savoury rusticity of the Shiraz fruit ought to be the feature here. And it is, or at least tries to be, but is consistently shoved aside by that damned Viognier, all pretty and siliconed up, smoothing away any rough edges and masking what is, for me, the very centre of attraction of this wine.

I’d be curious to taste this with others, as I suspect it would be tremendously popular with a lot of people. It’s flavoursome, clean, texturally slick and just plain generous. Alas, though, the style just isn’t for me.

Mount Avoca
Price: $A27
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Mike Press Shiraz 2010

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The story of Mike Press Wines is atypical in many respects. After bursting onto the scene a few years ago with some great show results and a price point totally at odds with the quality of its wines, Mike Press has done what few wines lovers, in our collective cynicism, probably didn’t expect: he improved things even further. In my view, the last five years has seen a consistent refinement of the reds in particular, honing oak character while retaining excellent expression of fruit. Denoting a wine as “single vineyard” may seem pretentious at this price point, but it’s entirely justified, and one approaches these wines best by being thankful for their affordability and then forgetting cost altogether.

This wine has a balance of fruit and oak that wasn’t quite achieved a few years ago, but which now prompts a dense, concentrated aroma of brambles, brown spice, subtle vegetal notes and squished berries to waft from the glass. Inevitably in such a young wine, a couple of the elements aren’t fully integrated, but it’s impressively coherent nonetheless, especially in terms of the way the oak’s influence weaves into the fabric of the fruit, supporting and spicing it well.

The palate comes across as rich and full, quite fruit driven, but with a decent structural framework and a consequent sense of orderliness underlying the whole. Quite plush on entry, a tumble of very ripe plums and blackberries moves through to the middle palate. I like how clean the fruit is here, without being simple or in any way confected. On the after palate, well balanced acid and velvety tannins start to take over, adding texture to the mouthfeel and some welcome nerviness to the vibe. A decent finish, full of sweet tannins and vanilla oak flavours.

A really nice release of this wine, showing a fullness of fruit in particular that should be utterly crowd pleasing.

Mike Press
Price: $13-14
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Mitchell Harris Shiraz 2009

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Unlike the unusual Sangiovese just reviewed, this wine represents a classic Pyrenees style and one that drinkers will approach with justifiably high expectations. As with all regions in the Western Victoria Zone, the Pyrenees seems to be both highly regarded and perennially underrated, the kind of place wine nerds go nuts over but one that seems to lack the profile of many other Australian regions, large and small. This is certainly a true example of the style, the aroma throwing typically rich, dark fruit and the characteristic note of eucalypt that polarises some. For me, it adds a rustic, slightly hard edge to the aroma profile that is neither positive nor particularly negative; it’s just regional. Here, it is augmented by some evident whole bunch fermentation, which meshes well with the greener aspects of the aroma. There’s a prickliness too that adds complexity and dimension, leading further down through more clean, liquid fruit to a base of well-balanced, straightforward oak. A dash of Viognier makes itself felt through a pretty lift of florals, not enough to corrupt the character of the wine but certainly noticeable.The palate is generous without being in any way outsize. Entry is superbly clean, a lovely dash of savoury berry fruit flooding the mouth and gaining complexity along the way. Sexy oak, eucalyptus, stalk, vanilla; it’s all very easy to drink without being simple or confected. The palate structure is relatively easygoing, cruising along nicely until late in the after palate, where a firmer skeleton of tannin finally emerges, lightly drying the mouth and adding textural interest. The finish is a tad hard right now, with what seems like stalk contributing a rawness to the mouthfeel.  This might benefit from a short rest in bottle — perhaps a year or two — to settle and lose its edge. Rather delicious wine. Mitchell Harris
Price: $A29.95
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample